MAYOR AMENDS TOURISM DEMANDS

Filner says his latest proposal would let frozen funds flow again

San Diego 
Mayor Bob Filner has made a counteroffer in a dispute over tourism marketing funds by proposing to allow the money — roughly $30 million annually — to be released immediately but requiring significant changes to a deal approved last year by hoteliers and city leaders.

The money is collected as a 2 percent surcharge on hotel rooms, and is spent by a Tourism Marketing District to promote the city.

The hotelier-run district cannot spend the money at present because Filner has not signed an agreement reached with his predecessor, former Mayor Jerry Sanders. Sanders failed to sign the pact before leaving office, and Filner has offered his own ideas for how the program should operate.

Filner’s latest proposal would:

• Alter the district’s operating agreement to provide insurance and stronger indemnification for the city should the hotel charge be deemed illegal in court.

• Reserve $5 million of the money for Balboa Park’s 2015 centennial celebration.

In the proposal, the mayor backed off his earlier demand that downtown hotels provide a so-called “living wage” for workers and instead called for the district to encourage its hotels to pay that.

In an interview Sunday, Filner said he delivered the revised operating agreement to the TMD board on Tuesday. He said he considers it a compromise that would avoid layoffs among groups funded from the surcharge by making the money available right away.

“I’m trying to work within the confines of that existing agreement,” Filner said. “We should be talking.”

The TMD board is scheduled to consider Filner’s proposal in closed session at 2 p.m. today and is expected to release a statement afterward.

At least one board member, hotelier Robert Rauch, said he doesn’t trust the mayor and wouldn’t be supporting the proposal. He said Filner should sign the current deal because his attempts to negotiate haven’t been productive and have only served to needlessly pick a fight with hotel owners.

Joe Terzi, CEO of the Tourism Authority, formerly known as the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Filner’s latest proposal shows progress is being made, but he expressed doubts that any deal would be reached before a court hearing on Friday. The TMD board filed suit last month to compel the mayor to sign the agreement, and a Superior Court judge agreed to an expedited hearing.

Terzi also said it appears Filner is throwing stuff out there to see what sticks but several of his ideas are considered nonstarters by the industry. For example, he said, the proposed pay cap would likely affect nearly every organization that receives tourism dollars because top executives typically earn more than $160,000.

The tourism bureau, which already has had to cancel its $5 million summer advertising campaign, relies on the city’s Tourism Marketing District for about 80 percent of its budget. The five-year-old district was renewed for 39½ years last year by the City Council, but Filner has been unwilling to sign the operating agreement because he feels San Diego taxpayers are being shortchanged.